“I must speak to you, Hetty,” whispered Nathan. “I cannot bear it any longer alone. What shall we do?”
“Do?” echoed Hetty, trembling.
“Yes, do.” There was no pretense of asking her if she loved or suffered, or lived in torture and suspense. They had not uttered a word to each other, but their eyes had “shed meanings.”
“You know we can't go on like this,” he continued rapidly. “We can't eat their food, stay alongside of them, pray their prayers and act a lie all the time, we can't!”
“Nay, we can't!” said Hetty. “Oh, Nathan, shall we confess all and see if they will help us to resist temptation? I know that's what Susanna would want me to do, but oh! I should dread it.”
“Nay, it is too late,” Nathan answered drearily. “They could not help us, and we should be held under suspicion forever after.”
“I feel so wicked and miserable and unfaithful, I don't know what to do!” sobbed Hetty.
“Yee, so do I!” the lad answered. “And I feel bitter against my father, too. He brought me here to get rid of me, because he did n't dare leave me on somebody's doorstep. He ought to have come back when I was grown a man and asked me if I felt inclined to be a Shaker, and if I was good enough to be one!”
“And my stepfather would n't have me in the house, so my mother had to give me away; but they're both dead, and I'm alone in the world, though I've never felt it, because the Sisters are so kind. Now they will hate me—though they don't hate anybody.”
“You've got me, Hetty! We must go away and be married. We'd better go tonight to the minister in Albion.”